Dr. Nathaniel Wilson

Lead Environmental Scientist

Nat leads the Babbage environmental team and is growing its work in this important field. At the core of much of the team’s work is water – waste water, storm water, water contamination which often results from our use of the land, and the impact of what we build.

Contaminated land – especially land being reused in our cities and towns – and dairy processing plants with their need for water and disposing it after use, are other key parts of the team’s portfolio. Nat specialises in geochemistry – the impact of soil and rocks on water and vice-versa – and the transport of contaminants, especially in water. He has expertise in nutrient management, sediment and soil chemistry, and marine science, and has worked in environments as disparate as high-temperature geothermal power stations and melt ponds in Antarctica. He has a passion for data science – mining data for patterns that will help tell us how to prevent or fix problems.

Nat completed his undergraduate and Master’s degrees at the University of Otago and his PhD, in 2009, at the University of Auckland. He joined Babbage in 2015. He is one of the few New Zealanders to become an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Bayreuth in Germany. He has acted as an expert witness and has helped solve environmental problems for clients across the country.